Control Your Thoughts, Control Your Actions

Quarantine may be the biggest blessing in disguise! All the time we are spending at home has helped us discover a lot of great things, but has also brought to light some not too great things (which is not necessarily bad!). 

To an extent, it is relatively easy to teach kids what they need to do like prayers, fasting and so on but what is really difficult is tazkiya or purifying their characters. How do you teach them to control their anger? How do you teach them to become more thoughtful of others? How do you teach them to give others the benefit of the doubt? A lot of parenting experts and books will tell you that there is nothing better than being a role model and so on. I believe though that that it is not enough, and with some children you may need to put more effort than others.

I came across a great book called 'Mind over Mood' which explains how our thoughts influence our behaviors, and that sometimes we are not aware of how these thoughts are affecting our behaviour. Knowing that our thoughts help define the moods that we experience, and that our thoughts influence how we behave and what we choose to do can really help us in controlling our actions and changing our behaviour. This can help us to teach our kids to control their anger or frustrations or fighting with a sibling.

How does this work?

I told my daughter to think of this example to help her become less irritated from her younger sister.

Your younger sister has just stepped on your toes, how would you behave if you had thought 1 and how would you behave if you had thought 2?

Thought 1: She stepped on my toes on purpose, she's always doing that, she's so annoying!

Thought 2: She didn't see me and stepped on my toes by accident. I know she didn't mean it.

As you can see with thought 1, you are more likely to get angry, maybe shout and feel frustrated.

With thought 2, you will be more understanding, less frustrated and willing to forgive. Yu can train yourself to become kinder, control your temper by changing your thoughts!

The prophet SAWS taught us this and told us to have hosn Al than with people. The attitude of the Muslim is to think good about everyone. When someone speaks badly about someone you know, and you did not witness what this person is saying, you you need to still think good about your friend. 

What other ways have you found useful to help kids develop good habits?